Sunday, April 17, 2005

Neo-retro-faux-French-punk-rock

I haven't been following the rock renaissance in New York City (or anywhere), but last night I ended up at a small, short show of Les Sans Culottes, which I can only say was fun and very silly indeed.

[I should have mentioned, when I last published this entry, that Les San Culottes sing in French although only one of their six-odd members is actually French in origin; accorinding to this NPR interview, the rest are working on their French-influented English accents.]

They covered one of my favorite late-60s French rock anthems, Jacques Dutronc's "Les Cactus." Sample lyrics:

Le monde entier est un cactus
Il est impossible de s'asseoir
Dans la vie, Il n'y a qu'des cactus
Moi j'm'pique de le savoir

Aïe! Aïe! Aïe! Ouille! Aïe! Aïe! Aïe!

Which could be translated as:
The whole world is a cactus
It's impossible to sit down
In life, there are only cacti
I am hurt [pricked] to learn it [or perhaps, I shoot up on learning it?]
I


Source: Abazada.com (It looks like a sound file might be available there.)

[update: Lord Zim, in comments, directs readers to his insider-account of tensions within Les Sans Culottes. It's a well-told story of a common complaint: the smartest, most conceptual member of the group is tempted out. And the other moral lessons? From Lord Zim:
Be careful whom you trust with your work. Don't surrender control. And establish safeguards to help you resume control if you have to. And don't place your faith in someone who refers to himself in the third person, especially if he uses an article in his sobriquet.

In other news, it looks from Lord Zim's account that we were at the same show. I would give identifying features, but since I spent most of that evening making out with a hottie in public, I hesitate.]

1 Comments:

Blogger Lord Zim:

Hello! As a devoted PGW reader, I find your blog especially interesting.

That notwithstanding, I am writing to alert you to my own blog (nothing is selfless in the blogosphere), where I have just posted a lengthy piece on Les Sans Culottes and the skullduggery cleaving the band in two. It's quite a story. I hope you'll have a look and link to my blog at lordzim.blogspot.com. Many thanks.

4/28/2005 02:43:00 PM  

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